Landfill Expansion Ban Dropped : Garbage: San Marcos lifts moratorium on dump and will consider county application to increase capacity.

San Marcos lifted its ban against expansion of North County’s only landfill Wednesday night.

In doing so, though, the San Marcos City Council said its decision was contingent on several other North County cities’ agreeing to pay to dump their trash in San Marcos.

The action was approved by a unanimous vote of the council, which had enacted the expansion moratorium last October.

The dump will reach capacity by July 1 and is scheduled to be closed, forcing haulers to transport North County waste to more distant landfills in the eastern and southern parts of the county, costing residents an additional $5 to $7 per household each month.

“We still hold the reins. We still have final control,” San Marcos Mayor Lee Thibadeau assured the council, which expressed doubts about lifting the expansion ban.

Within the next few weeks, the council will consider the county’s application to increase the capacity of its landfill situated within San Marcos city limits.

The City Council, Thibadeau explained, may reject the permit application or attach conditions that would commit other North County cities to support a recycling center and trash-burning plant adjacent to the dump site.

Spokesmen from Encinitas, Carlsbad and Oceanside spoke in support of lifting the landfill expansion moratorium. Oceanside City Manager John Mamaux pointed out that allowing the expansion was necessary to keep talks about solving the trash crisis going among the North County cities.

In its moratorium ordinance, San Marcos had required that other cities pay “host fees” to the city for the right to use the county landfill, and that they commit their refuse flow to the future San Marcos trash-burning plant that most North County cities oppose on environmental and economic grounds.

John MacDonald, chairman of the county Board of Supervisors, has called North County city representatives together in a series of meetings designed to reach a compromise on the dump and seek solutions to the fast-growing area’s refuse problem.

At one of the discussions last week, Thibadeau and Councilman Mike Preston agreed to call a special session of the San Marcos council to rescind the city’s expansion ban.

It was apparent at Wednesday night’s meeting that a majority of the council still support the multimillion-dollar trash-to-energy plant that other cities oppose.

Councilman F. H. (Corky) Smith said: “I’ve never seen such a one-sided issue. All the facts are on one side,” favoring construction of the trash-to-energy plant, “and all the emotion on the other.”

Smith said he was in favor of keeping the moratorium until the county signed a contract with Boston-based Thermo Electron to build the trash-burning plant, but changed his mind when Thibadeau warned that such an action would probably end the talks among city officials to reach a long-range solution.

Councilman Mark Loscher said he wanted Thibadeau and the council to drop the most divisive issue--the waste-to-energy plant construction--and look at other solutions to long-term disposal methods that other North County cities do not oppose.

“We’ve tried through friendly persuasion” to gain other cities’ cooperation in solving the trash crisis, Thibadeau said.

“We’ve used 2-by-4s occasionally and recently a 4-by-4. Now we’re called bullies because we won’t allow other cities to dump trash in our city anymore.”

Maybe the only thing holding back a regional accord, “is anger at Lee Thibadeau,” the mayor said in explaining why he had agreed to consider allowing the county to go ahead with its expansion of the landfill.

“Perhaps this will get us off dead center,” he said.

MacDonald and the North County city representatives will meet again today to continue their talks.

“I’m hopeful but doubtful that the cities will sit down and talk compromise,” Thibadeau said.